THDL Toolbox > Fonts & Related Issues > Tibetan Scripts, Fonts & Related Issues > Transliteration & Transcription Schemes > Sanskrit and Prakrit Transliteration & Transcription

The Transliteration & Transcription of Sanskrit and Prakrit

The US Library of Congress and the American Library Association transcription scheme for Sanskrit and Prakrit can be found documented on the corresponding ALA-LC romanization page. This transcription system reflects a widespread standard amongst scholars. The transliteration of Sanskrit in fact is fairly close its pronunciation, so there is not a pressing need for a separate transcription system of the sounds of Sanskrit. However, the ALA-LC romanization uses diacritic characters that are often difficult to enter or else not found in some common Latin fonts. (For a complete list of diacritic characters used in Sanskrit and other language transliteration in THL, see our complete diacritic chart.) In addition, the pronunciation of some diacritic marks is not widely known so that only specialists can properly pronounce the Sanskrit words. To date, a standard, easily readable, phonetic transcription of Sanskrit has not been developed. Such a transcription would in fact simply be a simplification of the transliterated form which eliminates diacritic marks by removing the macron indicating long vowels, or converts ś into “sh” and so forth.

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